Lula describes as genocide Brumadinho mining tragedy

Brasilia, Jan 25 (Prensa Latina) Brazilian former president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva described as genocide the mining tragedy that occurred a year ago today, in the Brumadinho municipality, state of Minas Gerais (southeast), where 259 dead were confirmed and 11 missing.

'When people only think of profit, they allow genocides like the one in Brumadinho,' Lula wrote on the Twitter social network.

He attributed the rupture of the Vale dam to lack of supervision. On January 25, 2019, the collapse of the containment dikes of a warehouse in Brumadinho released a torrent of mud and mining waste (more than 12 million cubic meters) that razed everything it found in its path.

Since the collapse occurred, firefighters and lifeguards have tirelessly dedicated themselves to the operations of searching for employees, Vale contractors and residents of the area, swallowed by mud.

Faced with such a feat, Lula congratulated the firefighters and volunteers who participated in the rescue after the misfortune. 'They did it with their souls, so as not to appear in the photos,' he said on the digital platform.

During an interview with Radio Itatiaia, he admitted that when he was serving political prison in Curitiba, he did not believe that the catastrophe was an event on planet Earth. It looked like something from another planet. A giant volume of mud, an ecological disaster and, even more, a true genocide with 259 people dead already found.

I think, he said, 'there was certainly an oversight of supervision. And certainly someone in charge of maintenance knew there was a problem in the reservoir.

So far, justice has not issued any conviction for environmental crime, only the Prosecutor's Office of Minas Gerais denounced the former president of Vale, Paulo Schvartsman and another 15 people of homicide and environmental crimes.

According to the Public Ministry, Vale and the German auditor TÜV SÜD issued since November 2017 false reports on the stability conditions of 10 waste deposits, including Brumadinho, which had a probability of failure above the acceptable limit.